MAJOR campaigns are under way to save 999 control rooms expected to be approved for closure today.
Thousands of people have signed up for internet groups trying to block proposals by Police Scotland to shut 999 centres.
Scotland has 10 control rooms and nine contact centres spread over 11 sites. If approved today, this will be cut to five: Govan, Glasgow; Bilston Glen, Midlothian; Dundee; Motherwell and a back-up facility in Inverness.
Feelings are running particularly strong in Dumfries, whose control room will close as soon as April if the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) backs the plans this afternoon.
All the staff of the control room and contact centre in the town have signed a letter to the SPA citing "considerable anger and resentment at this proposal from Police Scotland". They said the proposal was "very grim for all of the 34 civilian staff and their families".
The letter says: "But this itself is nothing compared to the potential consequences for local policing in Dumfries and Galloway.
"As a result of this decision, public confidence in Police Scotland within this area is rapidly diminishing.
"People cannot quite believe that Police Scotland, having already taken away their ability to call at a police station front desk in some areas, now intend to remove their ability to speak to an operator with first-hand knowledge of their area in an emergency or indeed non-emergency situation. Lack of local knowledge could cost someone their life."
Some 8000 people have signed up on social media website Facebook to support the Dumfries workers.
More than 2000 have joined a similar campaign to save both 999 and non-emergency contact centres in Aberdeen, which is scheduled to see its operations transferred outside the North-east. Aberdeen has also lost its ambulance control room.
In a separate development, the future of Aberdeen's fire control room is also in doubt as the board of the new national fire and rescue board meets today. Council leader Barney Crockett has complained about both moves.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article